Traditional inventory management systems were internally focused (i.e., only concerned about a particular customer or a particular vendor), and insight into inventory on hand was limited to each party's own staff. As a result, inventory management systems for both customers and vendors were limited to managing current stock on hand and alerting responsible parties when to re-order certain products. Any visibility into a customer's inventory level by a vendor or a vendor's stocking level by a customer was established through a specific arrangement and proprietary computer system integration.
Another obstacle was that, in most vendors' and most customers' internal systems, inventory, production, sales management, billing, etc. were very often based on many separate computer systems. These systems lacked the standardization afforded by a common communicative language, one that would enable an efficient data exchange. Furthermore, this lack of standardization prevented not only vendors from proactively managing their customers, but also prevented different departments of the same customer from accurately viewing product stocking and consumption rates.
There is, therefore, a need to provide a method and system for transferring information between multiple buyers and multiple sellers that overcomes the above-stated disadvantages.